


Thou Passing Bell

by tangledaria



Category: Blood Ties (TV)
Genre: Gen, Historical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-06
Updated: 2014-07-06
Packaged: 2018-02-07 18:23:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1909098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tangledaria/pseuds/tangledaria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anne Boleyn and Henry Fitzroy died less than two months apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thou Passing Bell

**Author's Note:**

> _"Toll on, thou passing bell;_  
>  Ring out my doleful knell;"  
> -Anne Boleyn

"Your grace," she said, and Henry was so weary, so tired, that he hadn't even heard her approach.

He pushed back his chair, planted both hands on the table, and offered a silent prayer to God that he would be able to stay on his feet once he stood. If he could stand. The world spun and he broke out in a cold sweat but he made it and managed to turn his head in the direction of her voice. "My lady," he said with a deep bow. The words were barely out of his mouth when he realized his mistake. He closed his eyes and bent his head again. "Your Majesty."

"Not for much longer, I fear," she said, not looking at him. "I am being replaced." Her skirts swished over the stone floor as she swept them aside. There were no attendants to help her, no one to help her sit in her chair. He made to pull the chair out for her and she waved him away.

He gratefully lowered himself into his own chair and followed her gaze. At the opposite end of the table, his father was pointedly ignoring him. Them. It made perfect sense now why Queen Anne was sitting next to him. His father sat at the head of the table and the Queen at the foot. Still a place of honor but not at her husband's side. Instead, the King had placed the Duke of Norfolk to his right and John Seymour's illiterate daughter to his left. His father's wandering eye had found another mistress.

The Queen lifted her goblet to her lips. "Your grace is looking rather dreadful this evening," she said.

His father was laughing, slapping the table with one hand at a joke Henry couldn't hear. "Yes," he said, his voice sounding far away to his own ears. "I am told it is one of the unfortunate side effects of dying."

She didn't say anything, eyes over her goblet, still focused on the King. Henry knew of three seperate occasions where she had personally arranged to have him killed and here he was now, doing it all on his own. After a handful of moments, she lowered her goblet and turned her gaze upon him.

"He has not looked in my direction once this evening," she said.

"Nor mine," he told her. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her, her hands folded in her lap, her head held high. Her ladies-in-waiting were nowhere to be seen, scattered like birds in a strong wind. Now that one of their number had taken up with the King they were undoubtedly unsure of their place and trying to spare themselves from getting caught in the destructive wake of the Queen's downfall. He ran a finger around the rim of his own goblet and stopped at the sight of his own hand. He was struck, not for the first time, at how pale he had become. Looking into the mirror every morning had proven too difficult to stand, he was unable to meet the eyes of the stranger staring out at him from it. It would all be worth it in the end, it was worth it every night she came to his bedchamber. She was draining him of his life, slowly, painfully, but they would be together in the end and that was all that mattered.

"Your Grace," she said and he realized she had been trying to get his attention for some time. Her dark eyes were searching his with something approaching concern. "Do you require assistance?"

"I'm fine," he said, swallowing hard. At the other end of the table, Norfolk was looking at him with alarm. Henry irritably waved him away. "Your Majesty is too kind."

She leaned back, slumping against the back of her chair. The motion made a dozen hands lift to cover furtive whispering. She was nearly as pale as he, or maybe it was the grey silk of her gown and its contrasting red sleeves. Her long black hair was loose around her shoulders and she had forgone her crown and all her jewelry. She gripped her chair's armrests and laid one hand over her stomach.

"I think we scare him," she said. "He fears death."

"My father fears nothing," he said, angered by her implication of weakness.

"You're wrong," she said softly. "Your father fears a great many things."

He didn't have it in him to argue the point any further. She was right. Silence stretched between them. The chatter of various conversations threatened to distract him, but his attention was stolen again and again by his father's roaring laughter and Jane Seymour's giggling and downcast eyes.

"I am feeling rather morbid today," the Queen said softly. "Would you like to place a wager on which one of us dies first?"

He looked over at her, the room spinning around him at the sudden movement.

She cast her gaze into her lap, clenching her long, pale fingers. "We both know that you are dying for a reason, your grace. The woman who visits your chambers, no matter how hard your father tries to keep her away." She smiled. "The King's determination cannot be swayed." She looked up, down at his father. Their eyes met by chance before the King slid his gaze away. "He will not give you up willingly. Just as he will not look upon me with favor again." She put her hands on the armrests of her high backed chair. "Come now," she said. "I shall say fifty Hail Marys for you if you die first and you will do the same for me."

"Your Majesty isn't exactly the best Catholic in the kingdom," Henry said, a smile quirking at his lips in the face of her macabre humor.

Her smile was full and producing some measure of alarm in the people around them; conversations were dying mid-sentence, silence spreading in a wave. His father's attention would be drawn soon, but he didn't think he cared very much. It sent a thrill of adolescent rebellion through him. What must have seemed like the open flirtation between the Queen and the King's bastard son was a scandal he didn't think even the Kingdom of England had seen.

"I'm certain I am going to win this bet, Your Grace," she said.

He nodded and his smile grew. "One hundred Ave Marias."

There was dead silence now. She lifted her hand to the table into the space between them. Henry didn't know what her intention was, but before he could find out there was a sudden creak and out of the corner of his eye he could see his father rising out of his chair. The King's hand slammed down to the table with an almighty crack. The Queen smiled and they turned away from each other. No one dared speak until the King lowered himself back into his chair. Jane Seymour's eyes seemed to be cast even further down, if that was possible. Henry thought his father was losing something in trading the free-spirited, defiant Anne Boleyn for the meek and subservient Jane Seymour.

The evening wore on and he found himself strengthened by her conversation. They shared one last smile between each other with a glance over their shoulders and he was amused to see the color returned to her cheeks.

Three weeks later, she was dead.


End file.
